Availability of Family-Friendly Work Practices and Implicit Wage Costs: New Evidence from Canada

Using Canadian linked employer-employee data covering the period 1999-2005, I examine the determinants of the availability of family-friendly "care" practices and the impact of such practices on wages. The results show that the provision of family-friendly practices is not mainly derived from socio-demographic characteristics of workers but rather from job- and firm-related factors. The findings also reveal that there is a trade-off between the provision of family-friendly practices and earnings indicating the existence of an implicit market in which workers face reductions in their wages. This result supports the hypothesis that family-friendly benefits are to some extent conceived as a gift or a signal that employers care about employees' family responsibilities and, in return, employees are willing to buy these practices and thus accept a wage offset

Deterministic Timed Finite State Machines: Equivalence Checking and Expressive Power

There has been a growing interest in defining models of automata enriched with time. For instance, timed automata were introduced as automata extended with clocks. In this paper, we study models of timed finite state machines (TFSMs), i.e., FSMs enriched with time, which accept timed input words and generate timed output words. Here we discuss some models of TFSMs with a single clock: TFSMs with timed guards, TFSMs with timeouts, and TFSMs with both timed guards and timeouts. We solve the problem of equivalence checking for all three models, and we compare their expressive power, characterizing subclasses of TFSMs with timed guards and of TFSMs with timeouts that are equivalent to each other.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2014, arXiv:1408.556

Gambaran Elektrokardiogram Jantung pada Paparan Getar Telepon Selular

Latar Belakang: International Agency for Research on Cancer of World Health Organization (IARC-WHO) telah mengklasifikasikan gelombang elektromagnetik teleoon selular ke dalam grup 2B, yang memungkinkan untuk enyebabkan kanker. Banyak penelitian dan studi tentang hubungan antara gelombang elektromagnetik dengan tubuh. Terdapat beberapa kebiasaan manusia dalam membawa telepon selular. Dimana penggunaan telepon selular yang dekat denga kepala menyebabkan kanker otak, membawanya di kantong celana menyebabkan infertilitas. Manusia juga biasa meletakkan telepon selular di di saku baju. Fakta bahwa saku baju biasanya terletak diatas posisi jantung, maka dimungkinkan adanya pengaruh dari telepon selular tersebut terhadap jantung. Tujuan: Penelitian dilakukan dalam rangka meneliti gambaran elektrokardiogram jantung yang mendapat paparan getar telepon selular dengan membaca hasil rekam jantung oleh alat elektrokardigraf. Metode: Penelitian ini menggunakan desain penelitian deskriptif kualitatif kepada 30 smpel. Masing – masing sampel dilakukan rekam elektrokardiogram jantung selama tiga kali, dengan spesifikasi pra perlakuan, dengan perlakuan dan paska perlakuan. Hasil kemudian dibaca dan dianalisa sesuai dengan teori yang ada. Hasil: Peneliti membaca hasil rekam electrocardiogram jantung dari 30 sampel yang terdiri dari Heart Rate, interval R – R, Interval P – R, Interval Q – T, dan komplek QRS. Ketiga hasil tersebut kemudian dibaca dan dibandingkan dengan tujuan melihat dan membandingkan gambaran elektrokardiogram pada saat terkena paparan getar dengan sebelum dan setelah paparan. Dimana hasil analisa statistik dengan Paired T Test menujukkan hasil > 0,05 denga tingkat kepercayaan 95%. Dengan demikian hasil nominal dari data sebelum, dengan perlakuan dan setelah perlakuan menunjukkan perbedaan yang tidak signifikan. Kesimpulan: Penelitian tentang gambaran elektrokardiogram jantung pada paparan getar telelpon seluler ini memberikan hasil perubahan yang tidak bermakna. Dibutuhkan penelitian lebih lanjut untuk melanjutkan studi ini. Kata kunci: gambaran elektrokardiogram, getar telepon selular, papara

Institutions and Development in MENA Region: Evidence from the Manufacturing Sector

This paper examines the role of institutions (including civil law origin), financial deepening and degree of regime authority on growth rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using panel data through a fixed effect model. The results reveal that English civil law origin and the establishment of the rule of law work with the development of financial institutions to increase economic growth in these economies; however, the democratization of the political institutions and foreign direct investment do not assist financial development in promoting economic growth. The findings emphasize the prominence of overcoming institutional weaknesses and establishing transparent public policy governing businesses as a pre-requisite for successful universal integration in developing countries

Female labour force participation in MENA's manufacturing sector: The implications of firm-related and national factors

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region falls behind several other geo-economic regions in terms of women's participation rates in the labour market. This paper examines the implications of firm-related and national factors for Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP) rates in manufacturing firms located in the MENA region. The empirical investigation uses data derived from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys database and applies fractional logit models to carry out the estimations. The results reveal positive implications of many firm-related factors, mainly private foreign ownership and exporting activities, for FLFP rates. National factors, such as economic development and gender equality, are also found to promote FLFP rates. These effects are generally found to be more important for women's overall labour participation rates than for women's non-production labour participation rates

What Factors Influence Firm Perceptions of Labour Market Constraints to Growth in the MENA Region?

Labour market constraints constitute prominent obstacles to firm development and economic growth of countries located in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This paper aims at examining the implications of firm characteristics, national locations, and sectoral associations for the perceptions of firms concerning two basic labour market constraints: labour regulations and labour skill shortages. The empirical analysis is carried out using firm-level dataset sourced from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys database. A bivariate probit estimator is used to account for potential correlations between the errors in the two labour market constraints' equations. We implement overall estimations and comparative cross-country and cross-sector analyses, and use alternative estimation models. The empirical results reveal some important implications of firm characteristics (e.g., firm size, labour compositions) for firm perceptions of labour regulations and labour skill shortages. They also delineate important cross-country and cross-sector variations. We also find significant heterogeneity in the factors' implications for the perceptions of firms belonging to different sectors and located in different MENA countries. This paper provides policy-makers with information needed in the design of labour policies that attenuate the impacts of labour market constraints and enhance the performance of firms and the long-run economic growth

Peran Mahkamah Konstitusi dalam Menjamin Hak-hak Konstitusionalwarga Negara

The Constitutional Court as the judicial authority is responsible for maintaining the constitution directly and participates in strengthening the rights of human rights. This is drawn directly from the nature of the understanding that the constitution itself as a political document that protects the rights of human rights of every citizen and people who live in the country. The constitutional functions are the first, limiting the powers contained in the constitutional scheme of a nation, and second, to formulate protection constitutional rights of the citizens and the rights of human as a whole. That is why the role of the Constitutional Court directly correlated with the significance of the role of enforcement agencies of human rights in terms of “norms control”. Embodiment of constitutional and judicial review is examining through compliance with the norms of the constitution messages that cannot be separated from the universality of normative messages of human rights

Improvement of wind turbine lightning receptor

Lightning receptor is a device attached to a wind turbine blade that will attract and assist lightning current flow to the ground. However, lightning does not necessarily strike it, instead the other part of the wind turbine is still been stroked by lightning eventually leading to catastrophe damage of the wind turbine. This research is aimed to develop a needle-type receptor on a wind turbine blade for lightning protection system (LPS). Other than that, this project is aimed to study the practical parameters of lightning protection system, including the relation between receptor size and electric field strength. The receptors were designed by three different disk diameters of 0.2 m, 0.5 m and 0.8 m. In 0.2m receptor diameter, the comparison between the numbers and length of needles presents that 32 number of needles and 0.3m length of needles can attract a higher electrical field than others. Each disk diameter consists of different needles number and length. Finite Element Method (FEM) has used for this research, the proper dimensions and shapes of receptors simulated by suggesting the minimum and maximum electric field that accumulates around receptors. The simulation study plays an active role in understanding and designing the receptor of wind turbines for an effective lightning protection system (LPS), but it requires a validation under actual condition

Decision to Emigrate Amongst the Youth in Lebanon

This paper studies the determinants of youth emigration decisions, which is considered to be one of the main causes of 'Brain Drain' in Arab Mediterranean Countries (AMCs). We focus on the case of Lebanon using a unique dataset covering young people aged 15 to 29 from the year 2016. The aim of the paper is to identify the profile of youth's propensity to emigrate from Lebanon. The empirical results indicate that youth from non-wealthy backgrounds living in smaller dwellings have a higher propensity to emigrate. It is also found that being male and unemployed has a positive incidence on migration. Moreover, university education promotes the willingness to emigrate; while residents of poor regions are more likely to express such willingness. Finally, the paper provides some insights for policymakers